Iraq Diary, Day 4: Meeting one of Iraq’s most powerful men

Eisa Ali is a correspondent at RT UK bureau in London. He is also a political analyst with a focus on Iraq, Lebanon & Syria. He studied Law & Marketing at university before becoming a documentary film maker, journalist and writer. His writing has appeared on Antiwar.com, Informed Comment & Digital Resistance and he has appeared on the BBC, Press TV, and Etejah English as an analyst and commentator.

On Wednesday, we got a better understanding of Ayatollah Sistani’s role in the formation of Hashd Shaabi, met a leader of an anti-IS (Islamic State, formerly ISIS/ISIL) Sunni group of fighters, and interviewed one of most powerful men in Iraq.

We traveled to the religious affairs office of the Hashd Shabi in
Baghdad to meet with Sayed Kadhem al-Gabri, who is described as
the spiritual mentor of Hashd Shaabi. The office oversees all
religious issues regarding the fighters who are in the field
battling IS.

Kadhem told us that attached to each group of soldiers are
religious clerics who advise the men and, more importantly, keep
them in line. He said this was a decision made by Ayatollah
Sistani, whose fatwa calling on all military aged men to fight IS
brought the Hashd Shaabi into creation.

Hundreds of thousands of fighters signed up immediately, but
Sayed Kadhem admitted that not all of them had noble intentions.

“Some of the people who joined had their own agendas. They
are criminals who saw an opportunity and so joined Hashd,”
he said. “They attempt to steal people’s property in areas we
liberate, but we catch them most of the time and hold them to
account.”

Nevertheless, Ayatollah Sistani, Iraq’s most revered Shia Muslim
Cleric, made the decision to embed the clerics with the fighters,
even issuing a Warrior’s Code of Ethics.

“For example, some people joined up out of anger at what ISIS
were doing and Sistani issued instructions on the correct way of
treating detainees so that this anger wouldn’t manifest itself in
abuses against captured ISIS fighters. He also ordered fighters
to only raise the Iraqi flag whenever entering an area, to avoid
tensions in areas of mixed sects and ethnicities,” he
explained.

I ask him why IS had emerged.

“There are some governments who want to see Iraq split into
three parts and they have helped the growth of ISIS for this
end,” he said. “They are mainly Israel and some
politicians in the US, but we also put responsibility on Saudi
Arabia’s shoulders because they are funding and brainwashing
these people.”

We are brothers - this isn’t a sectarian war

Another individual we meet at the religious affairs office is
Shaikh Taha Jubouri. He is the leader of the Hamza Brigades, a
Sunni Arab force of the Hashd Shaabi. They number around 1,000
men and are active in the Dhuluiya area.

Many Western and Gulf-funded media outlets consistently refer to
Hashd Shaabi as “Iran-backed Shia militias,” but Shaikh Taha
refutes that assertion.

"This isn’t a sectarian war, we are brothers in the
Hashd,” he insists. “This is a war for our country and
we fight side by side against ISIS.”

Shaikh Taha, a leader of the Sunni Hamza Brigades of Hashd
Shabi. Has about a thousand men under his command. pic.twitter.com/UFsI2Y9aHB

There are thousands of Sunnis fighting against ISIS under the
banner of Hashd Shaabi. Many of them hail from the Jubour tribe,
one of the biggest tribes in Iraq. Like many other tribes in
Iraq, however, the Jubour are currently split between pro IS and
anti-IS elements.

On our previous day’s visit to the Interior Ministry’s holding
facility, the walls to the entrance were adorned with the
pictures and names of IS fighters who had been captured by
security forces. Many of them were from Jubouri.

This demonstrated to me just how complex it will be to bridge
Iraq’s many different groups. My friend and prominent Iraq
analyst Sajad Jiyad summed up this dilemma during his trip to
Dhuluiyah earlier this year: “One police colonel who employed
his cousins as his bodyguards was killed by them at the onset of
the siege.”

In the past 12 months, IS forces have massacred many Sunnis who
they considered ‘collaborators’ with the government. They call
them murtadeen (apostates) and Sahawat, a reference to the Sahwa
Awakening movement of Sunnis who fought against Al-Qaeda in Iraq
in 2007 as part of the US occupation’s surge.

These massacres have pushed more Sunnis to fight alongside Hashd
and government forces and they will be key to any chance Iraq has
of defeating IS.

In Ramadi, moves are already underway to bring Sunni fighters
under the Hashd umbrella.

Waiting to meet one of Iraq’s most powerful men

After I leave the office, I receive a call to say that I have a
chance to meet Shaikh Qais Al Khaz’ali, who is one of the most
powerful men in the country. He is the leader of Asaib Ahl Haq
(AAH), one of the largest militias in Iraq.
Qais favoured closer ties with Iran and his troops were said to
be trained by the Iranians and Hezbollah. He was kidnapped by the
Americans in Basra in 2007 for killing US soldiers, but was
released in 2010 in a prisoner swap in exchange for four Brits
who had been taken by AAH in May 2007.

AAH forces were also involved in heavy fighting in Syria against
the rebels, as well as Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra and IS.
When Mosul fell last summer, most of his fighters headed back to
Iraq to fight radical Islamic groups there.

We drive to Taji, which is to the north of the capital Baghdad,
to a dusty staging post where hundreds of AAH fighters are
gathering as they prepare to fight at the Baiji oil refinery
north of Tikrit. In the morning I had been anticipating an
interview with some political figures, but it was pushed back and
so here I am, standing in a shirt and tie in the midst of
hundreds of armed men dressed in fatigues. I think it’s safe to
say I stand out.

It is mid-afternoon and the temperatures must be in excess of 40
degrees Celsius. We wait for a while and several large convoys
carrying men, weapons and supplies enter the post. Eventually the
convoy carrying Qais arrives and he exits his car to chants and
salutes by his men.

I eventually get to ask him about the fight against IS and the
fact that some accuse his group of being sectarian.

"This is not a war between Iraq’s different communities, this
is a national war against IS and there are thousands of Sunnis
fighting with us to free Iraq,” he tells me.

I move around, speaking to some of the fighters. Some of them ask
who I work for and then smile when I say RT. Roosiya Al Yawm,
RT’s Arabic language service is very popular in Iraq as many
Iraqis don’t like the Qatari-funded Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya
(owned by Saudi Prince Waleed Bin Talal) because of the way they
have covered Iraq.

"Ahlan beek" one of them says to welcome me. They are
mostly remarkably young, in their late teens to early twenties.
They are all in good spirits, laughing, joking and performing the
traditional Iraqi dance called Hosat. Hosat involves one person
reading some lines of poetry and then everyone else joining in
with the chorus and dancing, in this case as they wave their
weapons in the air.

As we leave, it dawns on me that many of these young men may not
make it back alive.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.